Long wait for digital radio

By Jared Lynch
Updated November 7 2012 - 1:58pm, first published August 9 2009 - 10:09am

DIGITAL radio has hit Melbourne airwaves but south-west Victorians face an indefinite wait before they can access the 'CD-quality' technology.The new broadcast is unlikely to be rolled out to regional areas until 2012 and even the launch of the sector could be delayed in the south-west.Stephen Everett, general manager of ACE Radio which owns Warrnambool's 3YB and CoastFM, welcomed the new technology.But he said it would be "quite a while" before digital radio would hit south-west airwaves."It is absolutely crystal clear and you can pause and rewind (broadcasts)," Mr Everett said."But it won't be here for a while yet. The (regional roll-out) date was initially 2012. "It won't be introduced to regional areas all at once though."Regional broadcasters are negotiating with the Federal Government to set a date when the digital service will reach country listeners.Mr Everett said larger markets like Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo were likely to take precedence over the south-west."They won't issue us licences all at once."Melbourne radio stations banded together last week to launch the technology in Federation Square. The metropolitan broadcasters pooled their resources to fund the upgrade.Mr Everett was unable to quote an exact figure of how much digital radio's roll-out would cost, but said it would "certainly be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars"."It will be a very expensive process but it will be something that will be here for the long term."The difference between digital AM and FM transmissions will be impossible to tell.Mr Everett said analog radio would not be phased out for at least 20 years."There are 50 million radio sets across Australia and digital radio sales are about 10,000 so there is a while to go to close the gap," he said."Analog radio will be here to stay for at least another 20 years."

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